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Olivier Coipel

Olivier Coipel is a French comic book artist, known for his work on books such as House of M, Legion of Super-Heroes and Thor.

Coipel came to prominence and significant controversy as the artist of the American DC Comics book Legion of Super-Heroes during the tenure of writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning., beginning with the Legion Lost story arc. Despite complaints about his art style by long-time Legion of Super-Heroes fans – who felt his style was “too rough and unrefined”, leading to more than one prominent critic to refer to him as “Ol’ Scratchy” – Coipel continued to draw the series when it was relaunched under the new title The Legion.

Coipel signed an exclusive contract with Marvel Comics in January 2005. He was named in August 2005 as one of Marvel’s “Young Guns,” a group of artists that that included Jim Cheung, David Finch, Trevor Hairsine, Adi Granov, and Steve McNiven, which according to Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada, exhibited the qualities that make “a future superstar penciller.”

One of Coipel’s first major works at Marvel was House of M, an eight issue New Avengers/X-Men crossover limited series with writer Brian Michael Bendis. Coipel was then announced as artist on a new Thor ongoing series that launched in July 2007 with writer J. Michael Straczynski. Coipel left the title in 2009 when it was announced Straczynski would be leaving. Coipel re-teamed with Bendis for the four-issue 2009 Marvel Comics event series Siege. In 2010, he provided art for a Magneto-focused backup story leading into the Young Avengers miniseries Avengers: the Children’s Crusade, before returning to Thor in 2011, illustrating the first arc on Matt Fraction’s The Mighty Thor.

On April 9, 2011 Coipel was one of 62 comics creators who appeared at the IGN stage at the Kapow! convention in London to set two Guinness World Records, the Fastest Production of a Comic Book, and Most Contributors to a Comic Book. With Guinness officials on hand to monitor their progress, writer Mark Millar began work at 9am scripting a 20-page black and white Superior comic book, with Coipel and the other artists appearing on stage throughout the day to work on the pencils, inks, and lettering, including Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely, John Romita Jr., Jock, Doug Braithwaite, Ian Churchill, Duncan Fegredo, Simon Furman, David Lafuente, John McCrea, Sean Phillips and Liam Sharp, who all drew a panel each, with regular Superior artist Leinil Yu creating the book’s front cover. The book was completed in 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 38 seconds, and was published through Icon on November 23, 2011, with all royalties being donated to Yorkhill Children’s Foundation.